Peer review is a central instrument for the self-governance of the scientific community and for legitimizing e.g. funding decisions made towards both scolars and society. However, it is intransparent and time-consuming, especially so because more and more publications are produced. Therefore, the need to increase its quality and reliability was often recognized in the past years. Today, additional challenges have emerged such as generative AI, the occurance of predatory journals, paper/reviewer mills, etc. Nevertheless, peer review will most likely remain important for the foreseeable future, exemplified also by CoARA. 

On the REvaluation conference 2024,  the editorial board of the academic journal Research Evaluation organised a panel discussion on this topic. The panel focusses on two main questions: 

• How can peer review address the challenges posed by generative AI tools like Chat GPT?
• How should the relationships between peer review and bibliometrics be reviewed under the new CoARA agreement for open science?

The panelists were 

• Jakob Edler, Executive Director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI-Karlsruhe - DE & Prof. of Manchester University 
• Grit Laudel, Research Associate at TU Technical University of Berlin-DE 
• Nicholas Vonortas, Associate Dean for Research Initiatives - GW Elliott School of International Affairs Washington DC-US, Co-Editor Science and Public Policy)

The panel was chaired by Emanuela Reale (IRCrES CNR-Italy). Further contributions are from Julia Melkers (Center for Organization Research & Design, School of Public Affairs, Arizona State University) and Nicolas Robinson-Garcia (Department of Information and Media Studies, University of Granada).

Music: Urbana-Metronica (wooh-yeah mix) (ft. Morusque, Jeris, CSoul, Alex Beroza) by spinningmerkaba http://ccmixter.org/people/jlbrock44; SouljaUnit Remix of DeadRobot Music’s Surfy via https://freesound.org/people/SouljaUnit/sounds/640175/
Photo: Martin Jordan

Thanks to our partners and co-organisers that helped realising the REvaluation Conference 2024: Ministry of Innovation, Mobility and Infrastructure, Ministry of Women, Science and Research, Ministry of Economy, Energy and Tourism, Vienna Science and Technology Fund, COST Action PROFEEDBACK (CA ), Meeting Destination Vienna, FH Campus Vienna, Austrian Science Fund, Austrian Research Promotion Agency, ZSI - Centre for Social Innovation, Fraunhofer ISI, Institut Francilien Recherche, Innovation et Société, Joanneum Research, the whole fteval Community. 

podcast(at)fteval.at - twitter.com/fteval - www.fteval.at